


Counting Down to Zero (the “Come Back to Me” Video remix)

by jehane18



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Constitutional Law Issues, Destiny, Falling In Love, M/M, Married Life, Non-Linear Narrative, Passage of time, Remix, Soulmates, Terminal Illnesses, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane18/pseuds/jehane18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Are soul-mates just a myth? Does destiny really exist, or do we choose our own fates?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Down to Zero (the “Come Back to Me” Video remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abovetheruins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovetheruins/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Countdown](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/186184) by abovetheruins. 



> Many thanks to amazing betas lindensphinx and frackin_sweet.

**  
**_TEN: Zero minus 14 years_  


 

Dave Cook has always been all about the music. He sings, he loves Led Zeppelin and Our Lady Peace, he’s learning bass guitar. Songs write themselves in his head. He loves to perform and knows he’s meant to be the real thing someday.

He’s also always wanted to get a TiMER, too. He’s counting down the days until he can visit the clinic and have one implanted.

His mom and step-dad had met when their TiMERs zeroed out, just like that couple in all those soft-focus TiMER commercials (with their tagline _”Take the guesswork out of love!”_ ). Love at first sight, a love that’s the real thing, and now everyone can tell for sure.

Dave has never been in love, but it sounds like it’s as awesome as playing guitar. He can’t wait for it to happen to him.

~

David Archuleta’s always been about the music. He starts off singing in Temple when he’s four, and moves from hymns to Jason Mraz and Jackson Five, and the rushing music always makes him feel like he can see the face of God.

The Church doesn’t approve of TiMERs. Your destined spouse and eternal family is supposed to be all part of God’s divine plan – it isn’t something that science can predict for you. But secretly David wonders about that. He believes souls exist, that God has really picked someone for you to love for the rest of your life. And if that’s true, then it makes sense that science can prove it, right?

Then his father sneaks off to have a TiMER implanted, and leaves their whole family behind. People said he couldn’t help it, that he didn’t have a choice, that it’s “destiny”, but David doesn’t believe that for a second.

If that’s what falling in love means, then David never wants for it to happen to him.

 

 

 **  
**_NINE: Zero plus 21 years_  


 

Like that old song, Miranda starts talking before she could walk. She begins with one-syllable words and progresses rapidly to full sentences, and it isn't much longer before the questions start.

David and Cook manage "Why is the sky blue?" and even "Where do babies come from?", but they're caught off-guard when she busts out one day with, "What are TiMERs for?"

David isn't sure how to explain to their six-year-old the concept of _tiny little metal bands installed in each person’s wrist, powered by their body heat, that count down until the moment of their encounter with their designated soul-mate._

When he finally does it just sparks more questions - "How does it work?" "What's a soul-mate?"　"You mean there's just one person out there for you in the whole world?"

As it happens, the public view on TiMERs is going through a sea change. After the Democrat landslide in the last elections, people have finally started asking questions, and someone brings a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. It’s even rumoured that the US Dept of Health and Human Services had actually provided seed funding for TiMER LLC, which provides a lot of fuel for the conspiracy theorists of America.

Apparently, the answer to Miranda's first question is that the central device measures human bioelectromagnetic fields and matches age-suitable clients within a limited geographical area. David doesn’t know much science, but disclosures on CNN.com tells him there’s a computer program that runs an actuarial-based prediction algorithm and satellite tracking, and this provides an auto-correcting countdown to a match.

And as for the other questions, it seems that there isn't really one person out there for you after all. Clients have started returning to the clinics to have their TiMERs re-set after divorce, or a spouse’s death, or a choice to embrace polygamy, and indeed get assigned another countdown. (Also, with more and more Americans choosing not to implant, the internet speculation is that diehard TiMER candidates have started traveling the globe to tech-enabled countries, to improve the search for their closest romantic matches.)

 _Love and Soul-mates: Just a Myth?_ If TIME Magazine itself isn't sure, David doesn't know if he can be more reassuring.

What David tells her is, "We thought TiMERs could help us be sure about love, kiddo, but seems it's not that easy."

"Nothing important ever is," Cook chips in, and she giggles as he swings her overhead, her questions forgotten for the moment.

~

That's not the end of the destiny discussion, though. Miranda keeps asking questions about TiMERs (some of which they need to refer to their lawyer), and when she turns 18 she decides to have a TiMER installed.

David tries not to freak out, because it wouldn't have helped. Miranda had grown up wanting to learn taekwondo rather than ballet, to dye her hair pink, to try out for Juilliard (and make it in, too) without telling them. No amount of cajoling or reasoning from either of them has ever made any difference.　

All Cook and he could do – all they’d ever done, from the moment she emerged into the world and every moment since – was love and trust her, and pray that someday, somehow, she'd find her way to true love.

The TiMER’s blank, and she tries to hide her disappointment in crashing chords and melodies and later in David’s embrace.

When Miranda has the TiMER removed a year later, David glares at Cook so his husband doesn’t say _Told you so_.

"Love’s actually just a choice, right?" she asks.

What Cook tells her is, "Yes it is, darling, the same way we chose you," and holds her close.

 

 

 **  
**_EIGHT: Zero minus 10 days_  


 

The bar is in a total uproar tonight. The audience is pressed together on the floor and dancing and singing along, the lights on the cramped stage so bright Cook can almost pretend they’re really rocking a capacity crowd at Madison Square Gardens itself.

The music carries everyone like a tidal wave, Neal’s lead and Andy’s rhythm guitar carve duelling zigzag lines through the throbbing bass, laying down an electric map of their world for Cook to follow. And Cook does: riding the waves, cresting and falling and filled the utmost certainty that this is the best thing in his entire fucking life.

In this bar, on this stage, sweating and alive, Cook can forget about the thing in his life that doesn’t work.

Neal hits the explosive last chord at the end of the Stones’ _Start Me Up_ and the audience goes wild.

Through a space in the crowd he sees Kimberly leaning against the bar counter, blonde hair falling over her bare shoulders. She sees him looking, blows him a kiss, and he lifts his hand to catch it.

Maybe things’ll be different with Kimberly. After two months of dating she’s told him she wants to get an implant, to try for that happily-ever-after with him.

 _But what if it’s not me?_ Cook’s never been a negative guy, but he’s been down this road many times before, and it's always ended with a countdown that didn’t involve him.

 _Get your head back in the game,_ Cook tells himself firmly. He wipes an arm across his forehead and glances across at Neal and Andy. They’re wrapped around each other, whispering into each other’s ears, like they usually do between songs. The hot stage light slides across their skin and the matching TiMERs on their wrists.

It worked for them, not so long ago: the real thing, soul-mates, happily ever after. Maybe it’ll work this time for Cook, too.

“We ready to do this?”

Neal nods and they all shoulder their strings, and as one they crash into the opening bars of _Lie_.

 

~

 

 **  
**_Zero plus two weeks_  


David’s glad to have the house to himself for a change. His mom has taken the girls and Daniel to the mall for school supplies and it’s just him and the quiet morning.

He has a couple of hours before he’s due back on shift at the Red Guitar. Usually he’d use the time to practice on the new acoustic Cook gave him, but he told Cook he’d play for him at the store one of these days and he wants to make sure he does a good job.

David opens up the small piano and sits down. The piano was one of the few things they brought with them to L.A. He practiced on it all the way through high school, in their old house in Murray. When they'd had to move, his mom had cried when they'd unloaded the piano. There's barely enough space in the new, smaller living room for all their furniture, let alone a baby grand.

David needs to stop thinking about what happened after his father left and they had to move. He should decide on what to play for Cook when he next sees him at The Red Guitar. Something classical, or more current - maybe some John Mayer or Ben Folds? He starts off with Beethoven’s 14th, just to give his hands something to do.

His fingers feel stiff at first, the opening measures of the sonata starting slow and then the timing and rhythm coming back to him as he warms up. He forges ahead, playing until it makes his skin hot, the notes pouring out of his fingers like they’re alive and made of rushing water, of light.

Would it feel like this playing for Cook? Cook, with his broad open face and his laugh and the calluses on his fingers that David could still feel against his skin hours after every private lesson?

David hasn’t ever really dated anyone before, and doesn’t know what it’s like to _really like_ someone. But he maybe thinks it might feel something like this: hot and nervous and like he needs to run up and down the stairs over and over again so he doesn’t burst out of his skin.

David blushes, although he knows there’s absolutely no one there to see him. He needs to stop thinking about this, too – Cook’s had way more dating experience, with girls as well as guys, and he’s really nice and friendly to everybody, it may not mean he likes David that way.

Also, Cook has a TiMER, which he talks about a lot. He might not ever understand why David doesn’t want one.

Maybe David should get a TiMER after all – at least it would _take the guesswork out of love!_ , wouldn’t it? But he knows what a really bad idea that is.

Instead, he concentrates on his hands, which have somehow started playing Stan Walker’s _I Will Choose to Love You_ all by themselves.

 

 

 **  
**_SEVEN: Zero plus 19 years_  


 

So Drew might have had his TiMER removed, but, as he tells Cook, there’s just some stuff you can’t fucking un-see.

Cook knows it isn’t for lack of trying, though. Drew chats up girls in clubs and after Cook’s concerts, hangs out with his co-teachers and some of the substitutes after school. He spends two and a half years with blue-eyed Claire, a music critic for their local radio station, before she moves to London and he decides to stay.

He doesn’t want to really talk about his TiMER history with his parents or his big brother. “It has nothing to do with that piece of junk,” Drew would say, without looking up from the puzzle he was helping Miranda with, or the article he’d be pretending to write. “After all, you and Archie did fine without it, am I right?”

Cook would look over his brother’s head at David’s carefully neutral expression. “Absolutely,” he’d say and it never fails to make David grin.

They’re at Cook’s bar celebrating Drew’s 43rd birthday when it finally happens.

One moment, they’re toasting each other -“My brother, still the most eligible bachelor in L.A.!”- and in another, two women have come up to Cook and asked for his autograph.

The first woman is a brunette: girlish, with a ready smile, wearing jeans and plaid shirt. “ _This Loud Morning_ is my favorite album of all time,” she says to Cook.

“I’m flattered,” says Cook, and he is – the local patrons pretend their rock-star boss-man is just another regular joe and Cook is cool with that, but if he wasn’t up for the fan-service he’d have stayed a regular bartender.

The woman’s name is Kayla: she’s a schoolteacher from D.C., and her blonde friend Christie is an accountant. “This is my brother Andrew,” Cook says, somewhat belatedly, because for some reason Drew is elbowing him in the side and making like he’s 13 again, not 43.

“Oh, the infamous brother Andrew!” Christie grins, and Kayla says, “You’re a teacher too, aren’t you? Any words of advice?”

“Yeah, and yeah,” says Drew. “You gotta do it out of love. And you have to give it one hundred percent. I mean, I love music too, wanted to be a musician like my brother. But I chose to teach, and I haven’t looked back since.”

Cook blinks, because he hasn’t ever heard his brother say this, or sound like this, even, like he’s headlining some ad campaign for teacher recruitment.

Kayla looks impressed, maybe even more than impressed. “I chose too,” she says, and they look at each other appraisingly, like some delicate balance has been forged between them.

Christie’s the only one looking down, and she says, “Kayla, your hand!”

Bemused, Kayla puts both hands on the bar counter. There’s gray band on her left wrist that’s blinking under the low lights of the bar. They crowd in closer and see Kayla’s TiMER wristband screen flashing _**ZERO**_ in celebratory red LED.

“I don’t get it,” Kayla mutters. Frowning, she taps the screen a couple of times. “My countdown was stuck at _**43 DAYS**_ for weeks. I thought it was broken! I was thinking about taking it out, but I guess it's not broken now…”

She looks warily at the Cook brothers and then around the bar, and then back to them.

Or back at Drew, anyway, and Cook realizes his kid brother is staring at this woman like a light has just gone off in his head.

“Hot damn, this was totally worth the wait,” Drew says.

“Excuse me?” Kayla asks.

Drew raises his left wrist, with its long white TiMER removal scar.

“I’ve waited for you for 43 years,” he says, and now the moment is here Cook actually thinks that line doesn’t sound too cheesy. In fact, he might have something in his eye.

“Drew met his soul-mate in your bar? Oh boy,” David says, when Cook finally manages to peel his brother away from the bar and Cook’s sister-in-law-to-be and gets them both home.

“Well, it kind of worked for us,” Cook says, and David can’t argue with that.

Drew and Kayla get married in the fall, and dance their first dance to Etta James’ _At Last_.

 

 

 **  
**_SIX: Zero plus eight weeks_  


 

Weeks go by in a blur and David’s friendship with Cook is becoming something more. In many ways nothing even really changes - they still have their weekly guitar lessons every Sunday, still hang out on Fridays when David doesn't have to work. Cook still shows up at the Red Guitar unannounced with his guitar and pretends to force David to play with him (and nowadays Kris will join in, with even Michael and Carly ending up singing along to whatever song they decide to play that day, and it would be totally embarrassing if it wasn’t actually so much fun).

In other ways, though, everything totally changes. David’s not sure how to explain it, but the energy between them is different – whenever they’re together the space between them kind of shrinks and they hold hands as they walk and Cook pulls him in at every possible moment to kiss him (and it’s amazing that he can do that now, that they're allowed).

And when they’re alone, it’s like there’s a strong current between them that they can’t stop even if they tried.

David’s mom likes Cook and so do David’s siblings; after that first meeting Cook is a frequent guest at their house. His mom hasn’t said anything exactly, but a couple of days ago she’d told him she thinks Cook is a good guy and she knows David’s old enough to be careful, and David kind of thinks he knows what that means.

He knows what _he_ wants it to mean, anyway. He’s eighteen, and by some miracle he now has a hot amazing boyfriend, and he wants to do stuff with that boyfriend that all teenagers do (and which he feels like all teenagers except him have already done).

He’s just not sure what Cook wants, that’s all. One moment they’d be kissing, in the way that starts off as _Hi!_ and _I missed you_ , and that becomes _I want you, I want you_ , and then Cook pulls away like David’s hurt him and says, shakily, “Okay, let’s, um, let’s slow things down a bit.”

The first time he did that David thought that he’d really hurt him, and Cook had had to reassure him that he’d been fine. David’s pretty sure it’s also not because Cook doesn’t want him, because there’s always solid proof, pressed hard and urgent against his body. So Cook must be holding himself back for some other reason.

At first he thinks it’s because Cook is worried David might not be ready, and so David gives him plenty of little hints that that’s not true. So far it hasn’t been working, Cook still pulls away, and David figures the hints need to be not-so-little.

Which is why, when they’re fooling around at Cook’s place one Friday night, and Cook starts to breathe more heavily and to start grinding against David and to kiss him in the way that says _want, want,_ David lets go of Cook’s shoulders and moves his fingers to the front of Cook’s jeans to kind of take things in hand.

“Jeez, David!”

When David's fingers grasp Cook's bulge, Cook’s entire body spasms like someone zapped him with electricity; he would have flung himself off the sofa if David hadn’t been, well, holding on.

David lets go and Cook hauls himself into a sitting position. He’s panting, hair stuck straight up on one side, flushed pink from forehead all the way down the open neck of his shirt to his chest.

“Jeez, David,” he repeats. His voice is shaking, he can’t even look David in the eye.

David sits up too, realizes he’s kind of panting and shaking himself. He needs a couple of tries to get his own voice to work. “You need to tell me what’s wrong,” he says, and when Cook doesn’t say anything, “Do you think I’m too young?”

“It’s not that.” Cook runs a hand through his hair, his open, honest face looking completely miserable.

“Then what is it?” David hears himself sound high-pitched, but eerily calm. “Is it because… because you’re not sure about me? That I might not be your, your _one_?”

Cook looks at him, finally. His eyes are hot with something David has never seen before, and David has to catch his breath.

“Not that, either. At all,” he says, and David has to close his eyes with relief. He feels a suspicious dampness under his eyelids – great, that’s all he needs now, just when he’s trying to convince Cook that he’s totally old enough to move things to the next level.

Cook continues to talk, his voice sounding like it’s coming from very far away. “It’s just that, you’ve never had a boyfriend or a TiMER. I don’t want for you to figure out later that I’m not your one, and then you’d regret we decided to do this.”

David rubs his eyes carefully and looks over at Cook again. He looks miserable and almost guilty. Cook doesn't say that this was what had happened with Kimberly, or the people he'd dated before her, but he doesn't have to.

“That’ll never happen,” David ventures, "because I'm not gonna get a TiMER. And I'd never blame you, Cook, c'mon."

“You can’t promise that, it’s not fair to you,” Cook mutters. He puts his hand over his face. The blank TiMER screen is very stark against the skin of his wrist.

David subsides into the cushions on his end of the sofa. He feels as exhausted as Cook looks, and probably even more uncomfortable because he's also still really hard and aching inside his jeans.

He’s not Kimberly or any of those others who had been so sure Cook was the one, and had then found out after the implant that he wasn’t. It wasn’t fair, David thought. They’d decided to test their love by getting a TiMER, and then decided after the fact to blame someone or something else when the test didn't take– Cook, destiny, or just bad luck.

He knows he has to convince Cook that he’s different. He just doesn't know how.

 

 

 **  
**_FIVE: Zero plus 3 years_  


 

Cook has always known that this was what he was meant to do. He chose music, or maybe it chose him, and he never looked back since.

Rolling Stone has this running joke about how the Anthemic’s success was written in the stars (it’s a riff of the title of their third album _The Fateful_ \- last month’s cover spread was the Anthemic as Greek immortals wearing really dodgy togas). Whatever: fate or choice, music has been good to him, platinum records and award ceremonies and stadiums all around the world.

What he doesn’t dig about it is the weeks on the road. Though he loves everything else about touring, loves the guys in the band like his brothers, he gets antsy after too long away from David and their home.

In the early days David had come with him, playing hooky from college to watch Cook and the Anthemic rock small venues around America. Some nights he’d even allow Cook to persuade him to take over the mic. Cook was always blown away by his talent and natural, unfettered voice, like no one else’s in the whole world.

Then David had graduated and started making his own music; he’d been signed by Word Records and started touring with his own band. Cook loved how the music lit him right up, how it filled out all the corners of his life. He didn’t love how their schedules clashed sometimes and they were apart for days on end, but they knew this was the deal they'd signed up for.

Standing in the LAX arrivals lounge, anonymous in his black jacket, Cook counts down the minutes until David’s plane lands.

He feels rather than sees the flow of people around him. Families with small children, businessmen and women in no-nonsense suits, a Hasidic Jew in orthodox dress – they all cross the arrivals hall in separate trajectories like they’re navigating via their own distinct internal GPS. In one corner, a Homeland Security guard speaks urgently into her cell phone; in another, a blonde woman and a bearded guy in ubiquitous black are holding onto each other and unwilling to let go.

The luggage carousel makes the same endless loop, around and around on repeat. The numbers on the flight arrivals board flicker every few minutes, counting down.

Cook shifts his weight from foot to foot. He feels like he’s trapped in a music video for one of his songs. _The Last Goodbye_ , or more like _Come Back to Me_ ; something with airports and yearning footage that loops back and forth in a non-linear narrative. Time’s like a deep river, all moments happening together at once, all stories one story, the true story of his life.

Then he sees David and his entourage in the distance, and for an instant, time stands still.

The Berklee hoodie and khaki backpack makes David look even younger than he is. To the casual observer, he could be any young man in an airport, just another face in the crowd.

But he’s not just anyone, he’s the man who chose Cook out of the teeming millions on this planet, and as he crosses the hall everything else fades into nothingness. There’s just David, this one face, this smile, this singular soul.

In this one shining bubble of time, he walks into Cook’s waiting arms.

Then time starts again – the carousel turns, the passengers embrace and break apart, and David reaches up and kisses him. Like it’s the first time, and maybe, somewhere, it is.

 

 

 **  
**_FOUR: Zero plus 12 weeks_  


 

David watches the TiMER on the parking meter go up (twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five minutes). His unease slides down in the pit of his stomach like the change slides into the slot. His palms itch, his head hurts, he’s not sure whether this was such a good idea after all.

In front of him loom the double doors of the TiMER clinic, its name in big red block letters atop the storefront.

David tells himself he's not doing this like his dad. He's already made his choice – he's doing this so that Cook can finally open up to him and love him back.

The door chimes merrily as David steps through the doors, an electronic version of the standard jingle from the TiMER advertisements. Its peppy fanfare in the key of B makes his head hurt more.

The lobby of the building is clean and brightly lit, made of glass and stone. Employees in red shirts and black slacks walk briskly past. As David pauses on the threshold, hesitating, a woman with long blonde hair comes up to him, a bright smile on her face.

"Hi, I’m Brooke. Welcome to TiMER Corporation, _where we don’t leave love to chance_!" Even her handshake is full of positivity. “Are you here today to find out more about us, or are you ready to take the plunge?”

“I, I’d like to get a TiMER,” David stammers. Finally saying it out loud kind of takes his breath away.

Brooke frowns momentarily as if she can sense his unsureness, then smiles again. “Great!” she says, clapping her hands together. “Why don’t you come on back with me? You need to get your paperwork done, and we need to run a full medical workup, but you can have the implant done today.”

David can’t help but drag his feet as he follows her down the hall.

 

The paperwork takes a while to fill up, and the medical takes even longer, and then David has to eat lunch in the TiMER canteen because the satellite link-up’s offline, whatever that means.

Then he has to wait in line outside the implant surgery. Ahead of him is a family – mom and dad and their teenage daughter – all of them wearing matching TiMER t-shirts and talking excitedly among themselves. None of them are wearing bands on their wrists, though, and David can’t help feeling nervous for them. Sure, they might be eager and optimistic, but what if the TiMERs told them something different – would that make a lie out of their obvious happiness?

And what about him? He might feel so certain about Cook now, but what if he goes through it and gets a countdown, and finds out Cook’s not his one after all?

David struggles to his feet. He’s not sure whether he needs to get some air or to get away from this place, he just needs to get out.

He's not even paying attention to where he's going. But when he looks up, he sees Dave Cook.

Dave Cook, sitting in a corner of the recovery ward. Wearing a green surgical gown that matches his eyes, and really bad post-op hair. And staring at David like he's seeing a ghost.

“What the hell – David, what are you doing here?”

David’s at a temporary loss for words. Dimly he feels his arms flailing at his sides. Finally, he manages, “I should ask you the same thing!”

“Never mind me,” Cook says grimly. “You really want to get fitted for a TiMER?”

David wants to hide from the anger and hurt he sees in Cook’s expressive face, but he knows he needs to explain. “Yes,” he says. “Except I’m not doing it for _me_. You wouldn’t, you know, let yourself be with me because you think I’ll regret it later, like Kimberly and everyone else, but you’re wrong.” He’s walked up to Cook, fists clenched tight. He has to try to make Cook _see_... “I thought this was the only way to convince you!”

Cook looks up at him steadily, and then gets to his feet to stand very close to David.

“I don’t need any more convincing,” Cook says softly, and holds out his left hand.

There’s a thick strip of surgical tape around his wrist. Through the translucent plastic David can see Cook’s pale skin, and a deep red surgical scar held closed by black sutures.

The TiMER band, which has been there ever since he’d first met Cook, is gone.

“Oh,” says David, faintly, when he realizes what that means.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” says Cook, and when David looks back up at him he’s kind of red-eyed and grinning awkwardly and hanging his head.

“You didn’t have to do that,” David whispers, when he can talk again.

His heart feels so full. He remembers meeting Cook at The Red Guitar, of that pull he'd felt since even then, thinks of Cook’s offer of guitar lessons and hearing him sing - thinks of falling for this man, hard and fast and barely even realizing how it happened.

Thinks, _It would have happened, anyway_.

“Yes, I did,” says Cook, as if he can read David’s mind, and opens his arms wide.

 

 

 **  
**_THREE: Zero minus 18 months_  


 

Cook's grateful for one benefit of the TiMERs - they'd put an end to the whole nature versus nurture debate on sexual orientation. Most organized religions quietly packed away their objections after the research showed how a person's sexuality was actually reflected in their electromagnetic make-up.

Also, surrogacy? After the notion that a soul's mate could be scientifically determined, IVF surrogacy wasn't really a major religious issue any more.

"Although maybe we should adopt domestically," David says over breakfast one day apropos of nothing.

Cook takes a wary sip of his coffee and eyes his boyfriend. "This your way of asking me to marry you? Have to say, Archuleta, I kind of hoped there'd be roses and violins in the background."

David turns the same color as his breakfast beverage of choice. Tomato juice: you could take the boy out of Utah but there seems to be a limit to the Utah you can take out of the boy. "I kind of thought you'd be up for kids?" he stammers. "I mean, I see how you are with Gage and Gracie. You'd be an awesome father."

Cook considers this. "I _am_ up for it," he says. "I guess I just thought you might not want to have kids out of wedlock. Also, your mom would so kill me if we didn't get married in Temple first, right?"

David looks down at the tablecloth. "See, that's something I figured you might not be up for," he mutters. "We're a long way away from Utah."

"Some things you can't get far enough away from," Cook begins, snickering, then sobers rapidly when he sees David's face. "Besides, I know you still really care about this. And I care about _you_ , and I want the things that you want. And I really want for your mom not to kill me, so there's that."

David reaches over and takes Cook's fingers and doesn't say anything for a long time. Cook's started to wonder whether the Utah tradition of a huge diamond ring applies to a same-sex engagement, when David continues, tentatively, "I want the things that you want, too. So let’s talk about what else you want, okay?”

Cook knows it’s important that they talk and keep talking. That happily-ever-after doesn’t always come after huge diamond rings, or domestically-adopted kids, even.

"We can totally choose to do that," he says, and squeezes David's hand.  
　

 

 **  
**_TWO: Zero plus 28 weeks_  


 

Laughing, Cook and David stagger through the doorway of Cook’s apartment and kick the door shut behind them. Cook is trying to wrangle both their guitar cases and their coats and his increasingly affectionate boyfriend; David has one hand on Cook’s lapel and the other in Cook’s hair. They’d held hands throughout dinner and they’ve been kissing each other’s faces off in the cab ride back home and they’re not stopping now they’re back home and alone at last.

“Hey,” Cook says, finally, when he backs over a couple of books and nearly drops his guitar case. “Let me put these down before I break them and somehow the deal’s off or something.”

“I don’t think RCA cares about your guitar,” David whispers against Cook’s mouth. “Not that it’s not special,” he adds hastily, which is adorable; he knows Cook loves his white Gibson with his brothers’ initials on the side. He lets Cook go so that Cook can put the cases against the wall.

“Don’t be too sure, maybe there’s something about the audition guitars in that 100 page contract.” Cook frowns as he takes off his coat and tie. “Speaking of which, we absolutely can’t read that thing. Looks like we need to hire ourselves a lawyer.”

David takes his coat off as well. His eyes are shining, his dark hair’s a mess, his nice shirt – which they’d bought that afternoon from Saks’ to wear to the fancy RCA celebratory signing dinner – has come partly loose, baring an expanse of throat that Cook wants to bite, and suddenly his proximity is making Cook crazy.

“I’m so proud of you,” David is saying when Cook sweeps him into his arms.

“Enough business talk,” he murmurs and starts unbuttoning.

David grins and winds his arms around Cook’s neck and kisses him so hard their teeth clack together, and the desire that’s been building through the evening finally breaks over them like a high wave.

Somehow and too quickly, there’s a trail of fancy clothes on the floor, and his virgin boyfriend is naked in his bed.

Cook knows he needs to go slowly, because they’ve done many things over the last weeks and months but they’ve never done _this_. It’s unbelievably difficult – David is sucking on his tongue, and he’s so hard he thinks he might explode, and all he wants to do is hold David down and fuck him into the mattress.

And that’s a bad idea because of the way Cook’s control is unravelling. He decides to add more lube to his palm and jack David faster because maybe if David comes now he can head this off at the pass? Only David pulls his fingers over Cook’s and slides them behind David’s balls and Cook suddenly can’t see straight.

“God – David – you need to be sure –”

“I am, I’m sure, I’ve been sure for weeks,” David gasps, and when Cook slides his slick fingers into David’s hole, David goes slack with pleasure.

Cook pulls back after too many heated seconds to look at David's face, his red cheeks and hazy eyes, and asks, "Is this okay?"

“Yes,” David murmurs, “Yes, Cook, it’s okay, come on,” and lifts his hips off the bed in an invitation Cook can’t resist.

 _Please be all right with this_ , Cook thinks desperately, and goes in blind.

When he enters him David makes a small breathless sound and goes entirely still. Cook knows it must be harder than David ever expected, must hurt more than David ever dreamed, and he stops, doesn't add any more pressure, pulls back a little so that David can adjust. A violent shudder racks David’s body and Cook thinks, _Shit, I was wrong, he didn't, he can’t_ -

But then David _is_ moving, fingers clenching on Cook's shoulders. He’s not pulling away, not telling Cook he doesn’t want to do this; he's rocking back, slowly, unsteadily, setting up a staccato rhythm that starts them both counting down.

It doesn't last long after that. Cook’s barely able to jerk David off before he zeroes out, and comes and comes and thinks he’ll never stop.

He surfaces from the nameless deep to the taste of someone’s tears.

For one frantic moment Cook thinks, _This is it, I hurt him and he's leaving, I screwed this up…_ But David's smiling through the tears, soft and sweet and so fucking hopeful, as if every good thing in the world is coming true this night and forever.

What did lovers do before they ever had TiMERs to tell them they’d done something right? They had nothing to go on, except this.

Cook runs his fingers along David’s cheekbone. The new scar on his wrist from where his TiMER was removed is raised and red and itches like crazy, but he knows he did the right thing.

He doesn’t need a piece of clockwork to tell him what he already knows is true.

“You love me,” David says, saying it for him, and kisses Cook’s tears away.

 

 

 **  
**_ONE: Zero plus 48 years_  


 

It’s a sunny morning. The ozone layer’s gotten so thin around L.A., these days he wears a cap with a solar screen when he goes out.

He doesn’t need to program today’s destination into the hovercar. After all, he’s been heading out there every week for a year now. Sometimes Drew comes with him, and Claudia and Jazzy when they’re in town. Neal insisted on playing escort a couple of weeks ago, holding an enormous black umbrella over both of them to keep off the spring rain.

More often it’s Miranda and the kids, who kick pebbles and play in puddles and the new grass.

Today, though, he makes the walk alone. The sun shines across the gravel path, turn the quiet rows of headstones to silver.

Cook’s is on the far end.

A white cross with his name on it, and below the dates, the words _Musician, father, soul-mate_.

David runs his fingers across the last word, like he always does when he comes here.

 

When they first got together the term made Cook change the subject or roll his eyes, but over the years he'd got used to it. He'd even made a speech about soul-mates at their daughter's wedding that had made everyone cry, even their new son-in-law.

"They so are, aren't they?" David had murmured to Cook as they sat at the head table and watched Miranda spin around the dance floor in her groom's arms. 　

"Yeah, they're the real thing," Cook said. "Thank God. After that TiMER business I was afraid the kid would never be sure."

Cook had sounded kind of tired and David gave him an automatic once-over. Cook had responded really well to the chemotherapy, the doctors had all said he'd be years in remission, but all the same David wasn't letting his guard down. Cook was looking a little pale, shadows under his eyes, the broad planes of his cheekbones more prominent than usual. Still, he'd been holding up handsomely all night, which had been a blessing because David hadn't been ready to be alone, then or ever.

Cook had shrugged off the spousal scrutiny. "I guess we just needed to trust her, and to trust fate."

The band chose that moment to strike up their song, Neil Diamond's _All I Really Need is You_ , and Cook had raised his eyebrow invitingly at David.

David decided not to say, _Are you sure you're up to it?_ Instead, he put his hand in Cook's and allowed his husband to steer him onto the dance floor.

Cook's embrace felt almost as strong as when they'd gotten married all those years ago. Almost.

David said, to cover the welling emotion, "C'mon, nobody believes in TiMERs or in fate anymore, not even your lawyer."

Cook hadn't responded, just clasped David's hand more tightly against his chest and danced.

Cook's French cuffs were coming undone, David could see the TiMER scar on Cook’s wrist, the place where once the circuits had run deep into the complex network of blood and metabolism and instinct that made up Cook’s bodily self. The ridge of skin had been smoothed silver with age; the only pathway into Cook’s soul one that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.

Cook’s lips moved. At first David thought he was singing along to their song and moved his head close to listen.

"We choose our own fate, and I chose you."　  
　  
　

 

David sits on the grass and brushes away the moss gathering on the white stone.

"So, we had lunch with Lily the other day, and she said the Supreme Court handed down some new ruling on TiMER privacy. Like, on whether people could really sign binding waivers that gave the company and the US Government the right to know about their futures? And how parents couldn’t consent for their teenagers?" David shrugs. "Miranda was really interested – you know how you always said she should have gone to law school? I think maybe you were right."

David breathes deeply. "What else is new? I really miss you. Things are better than they were a year ago, after you zeroed out and decided not to take me with you. I'm back in the studio next week, and everyone’s good, but, you know."　

He thinks Cook might know, as it happens. The wide gulf of loneliness, the long nights alone, the hole in his life that he’s finally learned to live with but he’d never get over, as long as he lived.

What’s helped him has been the sense of time as a ceaseless river, as if the moments he’s living in are made up of the different parts of his past and his future.  
The parts he treasures most are the ones which hold Cook at their heart – Cook young and vital, playing his music before tens of thousands, Cook in their invincible summer watching Miranda grow up and then the quiet autumn of the illness that took him away. Cook laughing and always loving him over the ebb and flow of their long years together.

Would there be more years for them when David crosses to the other side of that abyss, an eternity promised by his faith? He can’t see it, either, but he thinks there might be.

"I'll see you again," he tells the love of his life, the last thing he’d ever said to him. "Wait for me. It might take a while, but I’m counting down."

 

 

 **  
**_ZERO: Zeroing out_  


 

Cook steps into The Red Guitar. Nickelback’s _Hero_ is blasting over the store speakers. At this moment, he’s walking toward his future like it’s a river in full flood.

He doesn’t know that then, of course. The Red Guitar is his regular music store; a haven of sorts, where he can pick up a new CD or stock up on new strings before the band’s weekend gig. The owner, Kris, lets employees and customers indulge in impromptu jam sessions at the back of the store in front of the display of vintage guitars. It’s awesome, and just the thing he needs after his break-up with Kimberly.

_"Oh! Um," a voice chirps over his shoulder. "Welcome to The Red Guitar! Can I help you with anything?"_

Cook's about to wave the helpful employee away, turning his head to say something about "not needing any help, man, thanks anyway", when he stops and stares.

The boy’s eighteen, nineteen at the most. Spiky black hair, huge eyes, a bright, eager smile. The staff name tag above his chest says _David._

His left wrist is bare.

Cook’s never seen him before. But somehow it’s like he’s known him all this life, and the next.

**Author's Note:**

> Remix of abovetheruin's awesome [Countdown](http://abovetheruins.livejournal.com/21729.html). TiMER premise [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiMER); I play some meta games with the [Come Back to Me video, here](http://www.mtv.com/videos/david-cook/368073/come-back-to-me.jhtml). Originally posted on [livejournal](http://calledmelovely.livejournal.com/5768.html).


End file.
